Liverpool Fans Protest During FA Cup Match

Liverpool fans marked today’s FA Cup third round match against Arsenal by protesting against Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun newspaper, who blamed Liverpool fans for the Hillsborough Disaster in a cover story entitled ‘The Truth’ that was published in his tabloid the Wednesday after the Hillsborough Tragedy in April, 1989.To make matters worse, MacKenzie was recently reported to have said that “I was not sorry then and I’m not sorry now” for the paper’s infamous coverage of the Hillsborough disaster where it reported that some Liverpool fans had pickpocketed victims, urinated on cops trying to rescue fans, and beat up a police officer giving someone the kiss of life. However, it seemed that the police had fabricated these lies and fed them to the press.Liverpool fans were also upset at the BBC for trying to air a show by Kelvin MacKenzie on BBC Radio Five Live on Christmas Day. But after receiving a petition containing more than 11,000 signatures, the BBC dropped the show.Before Liverpool’s match today against Arsenal, the fans in The Kop held up colored placards to spell out the words “The Truth” in protest against MacKenzie’s recent refusal to apologize for what his newspaper published.The display of placards lasted six minutes into the game — precisely the same amount of time that police failed to do anything to help the fans trapped inside the pens at Hillsborough until the time the 1989 FA Cup semi-final was abandoned.As soon as the six minutes were up, the Anfield roar was reportedly deafening.For football fans in America, you can watch the tape-delayed highlights of the match on Fox Soccer Channel on Tuesday at 3pm ET and 11pm ET.

About The Author

Publisher of World Soccer Talk, Christopher Harris founded the site in 2005. He has been interviewed by The New York Times, The Guardian and several other publications. Plus he has made appearances on NPR, BBC World, CBC, BBC Five Live, talkSPORT and beIN SPORT.
Harris, who was born and raised in Wales, has lived in Florida since 1984, and supported Swansea City since 1979. Last but not least, he got engaged during half-time of a MLS game.

12 Comments

AnonymousJanuary 6, 2007

If your going to comment on the subject matter!At least get the facts right!….It was the 3rd round of the F.A cup that was played today….NOT the semi final!

I believe it was also a demand for justice by bringing to account the South Yorkshire Police, Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, and the English FA, for their part in causing the deaths of 96 men, women and children and injuries to over 400 supporters – hence the “Justice for the 96” chants.

An interesting article reproduced here as it gives an insight into why there are demands for JUSTICE

Urban Opinion: Justice for the 96By Bill Urban

And since 1989 when hooligans rioted at a game in Sheffield and left 96 dead.

The above sentence was part of a Chicago Tribune article, entitled “Embrace Your Inner Hooligan,” intended to introduce American fans to the supposedly pervasive hooligan soccer culture in England. One can only assume that the author, nominal journalist David Haugh, aspires to move from the Tribune to the New York Times, because his comment about supposed hooliganism at Hillsborough is a more than passable Jayson Blair imitation.

American soccer supporters have weathered repeated attempts by major newspapers to publish negative general references to soccer in an attempt to ridicule the sport as foreign, or to highlight hooliganism and violence in the stands rather than the game itself to accomplish the same objective. That Mr. Haugh chose to write from such a hackneyed, trite perspective, peppering the article with quotes from British journalists from the broadsheet papers the Times and Daily Telegraph, thereby implying some sort of glossy snob appeal, will surprise no reader of soccer coverage in this country. But the comment about hooliganism causing 96 deaths at Hillsborough clearly illustrates that, for what passes as research in a David Haugh article, he consulted only the British tabloid papers, a research approach similar to relying on the National Enquirer for election coverage in this country.

In 1989, 95 Liverpool supporters died at an FA Cup semifinal game in Hillsborough, a stadium in the English city of Sheffield, with a 96th, a young man named Tony Bland, allowed to die following three years in a Persistent Vegetative State due to severe brain damage after a long legal fight by his parents. The victims that died in this tragedy were crushed to death when too many fans were packed into an area of the stadium that was fenced in. The fans died because the stadium was not prepared to accommodate a large number of late-arriving supporters, the signs within the stadium were confusing, causing a crush in the restricted area, and the police opened an “exit gate” to let more fans into the already packed area because of a crush at the turnstiles. In other words, an antiquated stadium, without the proper safety certification, combined with a woefully unprepared police force, who in fact cordoned off a section of the field in fear of hooligan activity while fans were being crushed to death in the stands, produced the deaths of 96 Liverpool supporters.

Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun published stories outlining supposed hooligan incidents at the stadium in Hillsborough accusing Liverpool fans of urinating on police officers and stealing from dead fans. The Sun has since attempted to “apologize” for printing these outright lies about what happened at Hillsborough in an attempt to play on anti-Socialist sentiment in the rest of England with regards to Liverpool. To this day, Liverpool supporters refuse to buy the Sun, and many news agents in the city no longer stock the paper.

After a lengthy and extremely controversial inquest into what happened at Hillsborough, a verdict of “accidental death” was produced. While this verdict has left members of the families of those killed in the disaster angered and saddened beyond belief, for the purposes of this article, it is important to note that no mention of “hooliganism” was made in finding this verdict. Hooliganism had nothing to do with the tragedy at Hillsborough, and the only people that believe this to be the case are those who formed an initial impression based on slanderous, scurrilous reporting like that produced by the Sun.

And Mr. Haugh…

To this day, despite the verdict of “accidental death,” many Liverpool supporters believe that the 96 killed died as a result of police and governmental incompetence, and also that many supporters died not in the initial crush in the stands, but while waiting for assistance from medical services either not at the stadium or prevented from entering the pitch by the police force itself. Accusations of police cover-ups and a governmental desire to sweep the entire incident under the rug remain deeply felt among Liverpool supporters, and many organizations like the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, continue to fight for new examinations of the disaster, and the role of the police in causing the deaths and attempting to cover this up after the fact.

The deaths at Hillsborough had nothing at all to do with hooliganism, a fact which Mr. Haugh could have determined had he bothered to do even the most cursory of research on his own. Labeling those 96 tragic deaths as resulting from hooliganism is shallow, contemptible, meretricious hack work at its worst, a clear example of a journalist in a hurry to make a cute comparison to fit his underlying theme and move on to other work he deems more important.

The simple fact about the Hillsborough disaster is that 96 Liverpool supporters were crushed to death at a soccer game, either by accident if you believe the version of events promulgated by the police, or as a result of incompetent safety procedures and policing. Neither of those versions of the Hillsborough disaster lays the blame for the deaths at the feet of so-called hooligans. In his efforts to spread the vision of wild, rowdy, violent fans, and perhaps sell a few copies of the Tribune, Mr. Haugh has used the deaths of 96 people who had gone to see a soccer game as a joke in his terminally cute and completely inaccurate, slurred account of what happened at Hillsborough.

Because Mr. Haugh shows no desire to make a pass at even the most basic tenets of journalistic research does not mean that the public must follow his example; Hillsborough was never a joke, and the deaths of the 96 had nothing to do with hooliganism. Ignoring the shameful, shallow and utterly incorrect one-line summation of what happened at Hillsborough in Mr. Haugh’s Tribune article is a start to a deeper knowledge of one of the most horrible disasters in British soccer history. That choosing to use the deaths of 96 football fans as a joke to illustrate a hooligan culture surrounding British soccer is shameful enough; 96 fans who never got to see Liverpool’s brilliant comeback in this year’s Champions League Final against Milan is not and never will be a laughing matter. But to lay those 96 deaths at the door of hooliganism is a travesty of intelligent, informed journalism, as shameful a distortion of fact as I have ever run across in an article about soccer in this country.

Perhaps a well-paid position at the Sun is in Mr. Haugh’s future. He certainly seems to demonstrate the necessary attitudes towards research and veracity in his Tribune article…

I was at yesterday’s game and as a fan of The Reds for over 40 years I have never experienced atmosphere like it. To those who say we should give it a rest after 17 years of fighting for justice this was the perfect answer.

You would need to talk face to face with someone who lost a loved one to understand the anger that still persists in the city. Or speak to one of the many fans who are still traumatised and can’t watch football without breaking down in tears, brothers feel guilty that they are alive and the youngest brother isn’t.

Christmas time is very hard for them all but for the BBC to allow Kelvin McKenzie the person responsible for the TRUTH article in The S** ( we don’t mention it’s name) air time on Christmas Day was an affront to decency and it was this that lit the first flame of the inferno today. The BBC where covering the match and it was felt that they had to know that public body has to be accountable to the people. An 11,000+ petition was delivered to the BBC by a fan site called RAWK ( Red And White Kop) but all the BBC staff did was move the program from Christmas Day to Christmas Eve.

Yesterday response from the fans shows we have not gone away, the issues have not gone away and with every slap they give us we will come back fists clenched ready to fight them back ten fold.

There are many Reds sites on the Net all have links to Hillsborough go and read them is you are unsure of the facts, one thing that wasn’t mentioned by the Gaffer was that a Public Enquiry was held Chaired by Justice Lord Taylor, he exonerated the Liverpool fans from any wrong doing and praised their efforts to revive the dying and helping the injured while the police looked on. There are pictures of fans who ripped out the advertising boards and where carrying the injured across the field to the few medics that where on duty.

I would on behalf of all Reds fans from all corners of the world thank The Gaffa for posting his piece.

Liverpool fans who conducted the boycott of Steven Cohen should be ashamed of themselves. Not only do I agree with Steven that Liverpool fans are some of the worst behaved fans in English foot ball but the facts bare me out: Let’s start with Heysel in 1987… how many die? that day. Who was a the root of the riot? You can always blame the authorities, the facilities, but sometimes you should look at yourself in the mirror. All of us non Liverpool fans suffered for 5 years because your fans screwd us out of European play. Thanks a lot. N